California Strikes Again

Although many people think of California as being entirely beach front property the truth is much of it is desert. Southern California for instance has very little rainfall and depends on irrigation by water drawn from Northern California. Realizing this Angelina and Quan Ha decided it was stupid having all that grass in their lawn and decided to replace it with wood chips and drought tolerant plants. What happened next is rather obvious:

Meanwhile, the couple said they had reduced their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009.

Oh and they’re being sued by their city. Apparently the city of Orange decided it would be a good idea to have an ordinance requiring 40% of a piece of property to be covered in live plants. They did this because, you know, they like things that make sense.

Seriously the problems of that state are never ending.

Blood in the Streets

There’s less of it in Washington D.C. now according to this article:

The year after the Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia’s handgun ban and gun-lock requirements, the capital city’s murder rate plummeted 25 percent. The high court should keep that in mind today as it hears oral arguments about a Chicago handgun ban.

I though the anti-gunners said that more blood would be flowing in the streets, not less.

In Lieu of Real Arguments Violence Policy Center Uses Character Assassination

It seems that Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy center is on the war path again. And as Days of our Trailers points out his organization, Violence Promotion Policy Center, has no real argument so it’s moving to good old fashion character assassination:

The SAF head is a convicted felon — he was caught cheating on his taxes — who at one time lost the ability to possess guns. He later regained the ability to own guns through the now-defunct federal “relief from disability” program, a multi-million dollar program that re-armed convicted, often violent, felons, at taxpayer expense.

Let me see if I follow this logic. First Alan Gottlieb became a convicted felon, at tax payer expense, for fucking up his taxes. At a later date he was able to get his right to keep and bear arms restored which make sense since his felony has nothing to do with violent behavior. And we’re supposed to be enraged about this? This to me sounds like the “relief from disability” program actually worked correct that time.

So what Sugarman is saying is he doesn’t want to bar only violence criminals from bearing arms but all felons regardless of context. That’s a great idea, in a police state.

Sorry Josh would you like to try again?

Senate Traitors Extend PATROIT Act

Yeah it’s official. OK it was official before but now it’s REALLY official. The senate is made up by a bunch of traitors. The senate today voted to extend the expiring provisions of the civil liberties violation known as the PATRIOT Act. This pisses me right the fuck off.

I’m very open about saying everybody who voted in favor of the original PATRIOT Act should have been brought up on charges of treason and dealt with accordingly. The law shits all over civil liberties in this country and undoes the Bill of Rights in its entirety. But here is the icing on the cake:

With the law facing a sunset date of Feb. 28, the Senate opted to vote for the extension of three crucial provisions of the act rather than opening debate on a revised bipartisan plan passed by the Judiciary Committee in October that would have imposed stricter privacy safeguards.

That’s right they didn’t even open debates on this. Nope they just passed and said fuck the American people.

To top that all of the current administration is still blaming Bush for everything. If they want to keep playing that card maybe they should show how they’re different and repeal of the of the God damned shit that got passed under his administration.

Bastards.

Violence Policy Center Demand You Pay Attention to Them

You have to hand it to the Violence Policy Center they certainly know how to whine for attention. Of course nobody is going to give it to them for reasons Snowflakes in Hell points out.

Violence Pouting Center released another “study” that amounts to them using Google to do searches for terms like “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” (As if those are the same things). These searches were done in an attempt to show the use of “assault weapons” against law enforcement has dramatically increased in the last two years. The sources they use are news and media reports whom we know aren’t the best at identifying guns.

I admit that most of my research for Truth About Guns is done via Google. But I also make an attempt (A very big attempt) to use credible sources such as data provided by the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. These knuckleheads over at the Violence Policy Center can’t even do that.

Look Closely, There’s Hysteria Ahead

I’m sure most of you know about the fiasco occurring at Colorado State University. The campus is trying to ban lawful carrying of concealed firearms by their student body. Well I found a rather interesting article about this. Why is it interesting? Because the article was written in such a way to appear neutral but most certainly is not. Let’s start here:

It is a debate that gets snarled in the conflicting logic of gun ownership rights and the simple notion that bullets and blackboards don’t mix.

Personally I don’t find disarming a populace simple logic. And of course:

Whenever a change in the rules is discussed, national groups rush in with their agendas. On Friday, the Colorado board of governors received a petition from Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC), a group that says young scholars stand a better chance of surviving the kind of rampage that occurred in Virginia if – as it were – they pack a pistol in their pencil case.

I’m unaware of anybody who carries that doesn’t use a holster. I certainly don’t know anybody who carries a gun in a pencil case. But we’re not done:

On the other side of the argument is Gun Free Kids, an organisation that began a “Keep Guns off Campus” campaign two years ago in response to the Virginia slaughter. It deploys research from law enforcement groups that suggests that there is no correlation between gun-toting citizens and lowered rates of violence.

I’m going to try and find their research. But since most colleges ban students and faculty from carrying on campus and all the major shootings have occurred on disarmed campuses it goes without saying that there is no correlation between armed citizens and lower rates of violence. It’s almost like the cowards who perform mass shootings seek out disarmed populations to enact their rage against. If only there was at least one state that allowed students to carry and didn’t have any occurrences of mass shootings. Oh wait:

“It really came down to two general issues, number one: best practices, just looking at what other universities are doing, and very, very few outside of the state of Utah allow concealed weapons on campus,” he said recently. “The second is risk management, and it really comes down to this university is responsible for managing risk on this campus of the students.”

That’s right Utah. In Utah you can carry on a state campus. Likewise Utah has had no mass shootings on a college campus since the enacting of their carry laws. No this is not proof, nor evidence, nor even a correlation. But it’s on par with what Gun Free Kids (How many kids are in college anyways? Most people there are 18 or older.) is presenting. Finally this is out of order in the article but alas I want to make a statement about it:

The group also says that there are few places where guns should be less welcome than on campuses. “With binge-drinking, drug use and the pressures that college students are under, we just think introducing guns into that environment, it’s the wrong thing to do,” said campaign director Andy Pelosi.

What person who has a concealed carry license is going to binge drink while carrying? Whom of those people are going to abuse drugs and risk losing their license? What college student “under pressure” is going to use a legally carried gun to do something nasty?

The bottom line is conceal carry license holders are some of the most law abiding citizens out there. Anyways consider this post a mini Truth About Guns episode without all the citations and work.

Creation of a Police State Through Zero Tolerance

Pop quiz time everybody. What do you do when a 12 year-old girl draws some doodles on a desk?

a. Make her clean the graffiti off of the desk.
b. Give her detention after school.
c. Call the police and have her arrested.

If you answer ‘c’ to the above question you are qualified to be the principal at the Junior High School in Forest Hills, New York. That’s right a 12 year-old girl wrote, “I love my friends Abby and Faith. Lex was here 2/1/10 :)” on her desk with a marker. Shortly after the police were called and the girl was handcuffed and arrested.

This is another grand example of how zero tolerance policies work. You establish that there will be no tolerance for graffiti and if somebody doodles on a desk you call the police. Time and time again we are reminded that laws enforced without consideration of context does nothing more than create a police state where people expect to be arrested the second they do something that isn’t approved.

For an example outside of schools let’s say there is a zero tolerance policy put into place that states killing another human being is illegal. Of course this sounds OK on paper under you realize since no consideration is made for the event somebody who was legally defending themselves would be charged for murder. The linked story has a list of other abuses of zero tolerance as well as police involvement in things that should be handled by school administrators.

If It Works Ban It

The United Nations in all their stupidity glory decided cluster munitions needed to be banned. But here are the best parts:

The treaty is binding only on countries that have signed and ratified it.

Wait for it:

Some of the biggest stockpilers – including the US, Russia, China and Israel – are not among the signatories.

So this treaty will only be enforced by nations that have signed it. The big three military powers, being intelligent people, decided to not sign it and can continue using cluster munitions. Why would they not sign it? Probably because they don’t want to get rid of devices that actually work.

The Definition of Dumb Ass

Wow some people just don’t learn do they? Dip shit Peter Bethune of Sea Sheppard decided that the best way to avenge the loss of his organizations precious vessel was to board a Japanese whaling ship:

He had said he wanted to arrest the ship’s captain, Hiroyuki Komiya, for attempted murder, following a crash between the Shonan Maru 2 and Sea Shepherd’s Ady Gil speedboat in January.

The gods of irony did shine down upon thee though as the Japanese crew, not being complete dip shits, caught the guy and are holding him. Right now the Japanese government is decided whether to file criminal charges against the left-wing extremist terrorist individual. The best part is if he’s charged he get’s a ticket to Japan for trial. Just to clarify by ticket I mean free boat ride.

Are You A South Carolinan Planning to Overthrow the Government, Better Register

File this under the goofy category. Last year South Carolina passed the Subversive Activities Registration Act. On February 5th the clauses of those acts took effect. Now if you live in South Carolina and are planning on overthrowing the government you need to register… with the government. Oh and there is a $5.00 registration fee.

What I’ll get a kick out of is seeing the number of people on the registration list a year from now.